alright alright, buckle in. major
Salvage endgame spoilers ahead.
I can say, and I cannot be stopped.
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Who is the Child??
I. BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
You might look at this title and immediately think,
kintsugi, there's an entire canon-adjacent fic of backstory for the child or
kintsugi, we literally see the child's backstory in chapter—! To which I say, bear with me.
We must begin by looking at the easter eggs scattered through Negrek's TR thread, primarily these two:
An astute reader might notice that February 28 was many Fridays ago. However, we can also prove this mathematically:
A simple python script can then perform the necessary math to determine if 276 is equivalent to 7:
Since it is not, we must instead turn to Negrek's other written work, including:
This post was reviewed by my peers, and by that I mean I pasted it with no context into random DM's, which basically counts. Of note is "we really don't understand" and "best thing is to assume and behave as if the worst is true"—luckily, we can certainly deliver on both of these.
The obvious conclusion is that these chapters are being delayed in the hopes of forestalling the worst shitpost, so that we cannot ascertain the child's true identity. However, a copy of Negrek's work does remain on a little-known, ad-riddled website known as "
fanfiction.net", to which we must (regrettably) turn in order to conduct the rest of our analysis.
II. TITULAR ANALYSIS
The first clue is, of course, before our very eyes. We must examine the fic's title, "Salvage", and its rating, "E" (for "Evidently not for Everyone"). Rearranging the letters in the word "salvage E" reveals the phrase
save algae. But what does this mean?
This question is answered by examining which pokemon appear over the course of Negrek's work—charizard and blastoise appear in both Salvage and in
Legends. An uncreative reader would attribute this to the fact that fics set in Kanto will often have character overlap. An aspiring genius would understand Negrek's hidden meaning in neglecting to include venusaur: the progression between bulbs (bulbasaur), ivy (ivysaur), and algae is undeniably clear. For those of us who did not study biology in undergrad and for whom this progression may be difficult,
this video essay can shed some light.
But we must ask ourselves, "
how can we save algae?" From the missing venusaur, we can see secondary typing and conclude that we must save algae with poison. The obvious conclusion, of course, is
eutrophication, which is often caused by phosphates, commonly abbreviated PO4.
But what is the PO4?
To answer this question, we must look deeper.
III. METATEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Perhaps we are better served looking at metatextual elements, such as Negrek's writeup "
On the Origin of Ash Betrayal Fics". Two quotes in particular stand out:
They're very popular right now, and all follow the same basic formula: Ash is betrayed by his friends and traveling companions, goes off by himself to do some solo training, then busts back on the tournament scene as a much more powerful trainer, usually with some new love interests in tow, all this to show that those losers had only been holding him back all along.
It's also unusual in having a very regimented story structure: there's the betrayal, the retreat into training, the tournament that catalyzes Ash's return. There are other elements that are common in Ash betrayal stories, including aura and/or psychic powers, legendary pokémon, and a wide variety of shippings, but the plots all follow a very similar arc.
Studying the child's arc, in which they are betrayed by their friend and traveling companions, go off by themself to do some solo training, then bust back onto the tournament scene alongside a much more powerful trainer, with a new love interest in the form of
Eskar, we can see that there is clearly no overlap between the child and betrayed!Ash. Salvage is notably bereft of psychic powers, legendary pokemon, and boats.
This is on some levels a relief, as it means our analysis must instead go even deeper.
IV. VISUAL ANALYSIS
Due to a strange glitch in FFN's formatting that converted the entire fic to second-person, we know very little about the child's appearance. One might assume from the lack of scenes in which the child stares at a mirror and observes their appearance that the child is a vampire; however, this is incorrect, as the child never once expresses a craving for human flesh.
However, a little-known, one-off character refers to the child as "Cordierite-eyes", which allows us to infer that the child's eyes are blue. Once more, a foolish reader might assume that this is meant to imply some relation to Mew; however, anyone who has read this far is clearly not a foolish reader.
Observant readers will immediately understand that "blue" can refer to nothing else other than "the exact color of a USPS mail box". Mailboxes contain letters, which, like the child, are awkward conversation partners and utterly baffle the Great Nathaniel Morgan. And so we can return to the question posed in section (II) and realize we were once again asking incorrect questions: instead of "
what is the PO4", we must ask
, "who is the PO for?"
IV. WHO IS THE PO FOR?
Our next clue is in the form of Captain Rubina Roth, who is obviously not an expy of Voltron or anything, but is instead a clear reference to
this graduate of the Köln International School of Design. Following the GPS coordinates to this location reveals 50.921648, 6.963303; an apparent dead end. Following
Robina Roth and even
Robin A. Roth leads us to similar dead ends in Bukarest and Virginia.
However, what other red-themed globe trotters do we know? The answer is obvious: Carmen Sandiego, which recently received
an animated reboot from Fox on Netflix. Visiting the official Carmen Sandiego website reveals a program in which children can write
goal-setting letters for themselves, learning skills such as "self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, social awareness, and self-awareness". The skills themselves only have tangential relevance to the child, but the number is far more important: "child" has five letters, and there are five goals here—this is a clear reference.
With this piece of the puzzle confirmed, we can move on to our final conclusion.
V. OUR FINAL CONCLUSION
"She wants me to go to the plateau so I can talk with my brother. I need his help."
Unfortunately there is absolutely nothing in the text to suggest who the child's brother is; we can only assume that they have one.
What other characters have brothers? The number is surprisingly small. Carmen Sandiego is famously an only child. Ash Ketchum canonically only has one sibling, a sister. With all available options explored, we must return to our central thread:
who is the PO for?
Only one franchise is famous for its delivery of letters: Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
One is obviously drawn to the Pokemon-themed reveals—particularly tempting is the addition of Team Rocket, or TR, an acronym of minimal importance to this disussion.
However, if one is to accidentally leave the video playing, the true answer reveals itself in the form of the very next fighter, who has blue eyes and at least three bones,
is a reincarnated child, has a
brother, is friends with a squid, and (like Carmen Sandiego) is created by
Fox.
This may be confusing to some readers, but this is not in fact a direct copy of the child's conversation with
Absol from
chapter 31 but is in fact from a relatively unpopular game, Undertale.
The ultimate test, of course, is to study the author commentary on this theory.
damn.
